Sleepless Nights
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: It's a sleepless night in Stark Tower. Please read and review xx
1. Chapter 1

The room was dark. The only sound was heavy breathing steadily getting faster and faster and finally a harsh gasp as the only occupant of the room jerked awake, almost falling from the bed.

He lay there trembling for a while, running his hands through his hair, damp with sweat. He pulled the bed covers closer, huddling and shivering as though back in the Arctic he'd left behind. After a few minutes he took a deep breath and lay there quivering. It took another few minutes for him to gather the courage to climb out of bed and pad towards the kitchen.

He made this journey so often he could doubt blindfolded. And because of that he didn't bother to turn on the lights - he lived with two master assassins. They probably already knew he was awake. But he didn't want to wake anyone else up.

When he finally reached the kitchen door (he never really got the need for the place to be this big), he paused. The door was almost closed to and there was light steaming through the gap. He peered through.

Tony sat slumped at the table, a glass of what looked like scotch clenched in his hands, running one hand through his hair. It was strange to see him without his normally constant movement and unending stream of chatter. He seemed to be staring into the depths of his scotch as though it would spontaneously reveal the answers to life, or at least the solution to his problems. Whatever problems the billionaire faced, Steve didn't know.

Steve backed away from the door, intending to return silently to his room, acting as though he'd never been there in the first place.

He crashed loudly into the wall behind him as he backed away.

He was a gentleman. And gentlemen did not swear! Or at least that's what he told himself as Tony poked his head around the door, his prior exhaustion wiped from his face, but still visible in his eyes. Within another few seconds Natasha and Clint appeared on the landing, armed but unsurprised.

"What, without your guns blazing? What would Fury say?" Tony taunted, turning his back on Steve.

Natasha completely ignored him, but Clint snorted softly. "An actual intruder would make an effort to keep quiet. Rogers failed miserably."

Steve didn't ask how they knew it was him.

After another few moments Bruce blearily stumbled down the corridor, following Thor, who didn't look at all annoyed by his interrupted sleep, and indeed looked delighted by the gathering.

Steve flushed.

"Are we having an evening gathering? What is it you Midgardians call it?"

Tony smirked. "A sleepover?"

Natasha scowled. "No Stark, we are not having a sleepover."

"Come on Romanoff. We can gossip and paint our toenails."

Clint snorted. "Are you going to do it?"

"I'm sure Bruce wouldn't mind."

At the lack of immediate protest they all looked over to find Bruce resting against the wall, eyes closed. As if sensing their stares, his eyes flickered open wearily. "What?"

"Nothing," they chorused, looking amused.

"No, really, what?"

Bruce's queries were ignored as Tony slowly began shepherding Steve and Thor into the nearby lounge, Natasha and Clint following. Bruce was left alone in the corridor.

He waited for a moment and then hurried after them.

Tony was already sprawled in his chair, Steve and Thor on the sofa. Natasha and Clint were standing in almost unconscious and perfectly calculated defensive positions, near to the exits. Even though they lived here they weren't comfortable. He hoped one day they would be - he knew a thing or two about not belonging.

"So why were we having this ...sleepover?" Thor asked.

"We weren't," Natasha said wearily. "We were being woken up at three in the bloody morning. At least at a sleepover we wouldn't have managed to get to sleep in the first place."

Tony guffawed. "I never really took you for the sleepover type, spy girl."

"Really? Whatever gave you that impression?"

"It must have been your warrior's attributes," Thor interjected, beginning on a list.

Natasha sighed. "Never mind."

To be honest, Bruce was amazed that she trusted them enough to attempt sarcasm. Then again, the chances of succeeding at sarcasm were very low - what with a God from another world, a soldier frozen for 70 years and a man who shot down any sarcasm that wasn't his own in the room.

Speaking of the frozen soldier, Steve was still trembling slightly and given the glances Natasha was throwing him discretely, she'd noticed as well.

"Is everything alright Steve?" Bruce decided that although Steve had not come down for a 'family' gathering that was exactly what he'd gotten. So Bruce would treat it like one - a possible landmine ready to blow up in your face.

Steve visibly started, shuddering slightly. "Huh?" he said faintly.

"Is everything alright?"

"Yes. Everything's fine."

None of them believed him.

But he hadn't become leader of the Avengers without being good at reading expressions. "Really. I'm fine."

"You not getting enough sleep Capsicle?"

"I've slept more than enough."

"Maybe you had. But it's not enough anymore."

Steve whirled to face Natasha. "What?"

"Seventy years. But you weren't asleep. You were unconscious. No dreams in seventy years and you've got so much time to catch up on."

Steve glared at her. It was unusual for her to blurt out her observations like this, in front of others, if she did at all. So why was she doing it now?

"Are you alright?"

"For the last time, I'm fine!" Steve rarely showed his anger, and it usually took a ten minute conversation with Tony before this kind of temper erupted, a testament to his lack of sleep and frayed nerves.

"Sure you are. You're looking a big green there Cap. Someone might mistake you for the Big Guy."

"Ssh Tony."

"Fine, if no one wants me here, I'll go back to bed." With that he strutted out of the door.

Clint smirked faintly. "That was very well played."

"Played?" Thor boomed, confused.

"Stark was the first one down with the Captain. It's very unlikely he beat me and Natasha down which meant he was already down there. He wasn't in the workshop."

"How..."

"He's actually clean. Which meant he was in the kitchen at three in the morning. So he couldn't sleep either. And we all know that Tony sleeps like the dead when he makes it to a bed. Which means he woke up for some reason."

"He ...had a nightmare?" Steve sounded incredulous. Whatever reason he'd thought Tony had been down for it hadn't been that. It seemed like the billionaire bounced back from _everything_.

"He is human, no matter how much he likes to pretend he isn't."

"Oh no. I know that. But..." Steve was visibly struggling to compute this new knowledge with his current perception of Tony. Bruce didn't particularly enjoy this.

"Tony is allowed to sleep badly. But right now we were talking about you. Are you alright?"

Steve still looked shaken by the revelation that Tony had feelings. "I'm fine." This time he didn't sound as sure - or as angry.

"Well if you are then I'm going back to bed." Bruce couldn't help but feel angry at Steve's assumptions on Tony; even though he wanted to help Steve through whatever was troubling him. He marched out in silence.

"Aah."

"If we are not having a so-called sleepover, I think I may too retire to bed."

"Night."

He too left out of the door, making considerably more noise than either Bruce or Tony.

Clint and Natasha shared a look, before Natasha threw Steve a sympathetic look and left, mere seconds after Clint escaped via the vents.

Steve sighed and rested his head in his hands, the flashes of gunfire and brown eyes already running through his head.

**This is set two months after the film and I might add a second chapter - once I've updated everything else. I'm not quite sure where this one was going and in the end it didn't really go anywhere. I think this one was just to try and improve my writing technique. Please read and review xx**


	2. Chapter 2

**Here is the second chapter to this that I said I'd write x I might end up with a third one, but who really knows - certainly not me x It will probably have to wait until I've finished some of my other stories though - I have new chapters to add to pretty much all of them x The first paragraph (well two lines) after the line break is exactly the same as the first paragraph in the first chapter, the emphasise how the times have changed x Please read and review!**

Over the last few months, almost a year, the Avengers team had become more than a team. It had become a family - with wise older sisters and little brothers and Phil Coulson as the kind of father figure who kept them all in line. They trusted each other, as best as they could with their lives experiences - which, admittedly, was not a lot.

They all knew little things about the others, the little things that made them tick. It was a far cry from the earlier days when Tony and Steve had constantly clashed and Natasha had refused to put down her gun at all, never kind relax enough to sleep. They had slowly sanded down each other's edges to make them fit, with space for Phil Coulson and Pepper Potts.

Now, they knew the kinds of things that kept each other up at night, the terrors in the darkness. It was a long way from the nights when Steve had gone to the kitchen by himself and Tony had stolen the vodka from the bar and hidden in his workshop and Clint scampered to the rooftop and didn't move for hours.

None of the dreams had gone away.

But they understood them better now.

* * *

The room was dark. The only sound was heavy breathing steadily getting faster and faster and finally a harsh gasp as the only occupant of the room jerked awake, almost falling from the bed.

He lay in bed for a short moment, trembling, reminding himself where he was - who he was. After a few short minutes he climbed out of bed, more used to the nightmares and the memories. They didn't get fainter with time, only less frequent.

He fumbled in the unsuited bathroom for a robe, as he had done ever since the Thor incident three months ago, and put it on, still shivering. The tremors didn't abate, despite the thick cotton - shakes from terror not cold.

He could picture everything like it was yesterday - Peggy, Bucky, Howard, the Howling Commandos - and his time on the Avengers team had just continued to build his repertoire of dreams as his imagination expanded. Two years ago, in his personal timeline, he wouldn't have even imagined mobile phones. Now he'd met aliens and had a god on his team. His imagination was expanding very rapidly.

He reached the kitchen quickly, now used to the path in the darkness of the night. It was empty and instead of rummaging around in one of the cupboards noisily, he went straight for the stash designed for this kind of occurrence. There were two bottles of vodka, one of gin, three tubs of ice cream and a huge pile of chocolates, all ready and waiting for any team member in the depths of the night.

Steve, knowing he couldn't get drunk, even if he wanted to, reached for the ice cream (a comforting technique Natasha, surprisingly, had shown him) and grabbed the tub labelled 'Cookie Dough'. It was his favourite.

He continued through the kitchen, to the small side room that had been created directly for this purpose, when the nightmares got too bad and the dreams wouldn't stop. It had been purposely designed so that it didn't trigger anything for any of them, so that they all felt safe and comfortable should they choose to come here. Of course, they didn't always - Tony still preferred going to his workshop and disappearing for days without food or sleep (although they were slowly training him out of that) and Clint was always much happier on the roof or in the vents. But they had the option, somewhere to hide - and that was something none of them were very familiar with.

He'd just settled onto a sofa, the lights dim but not dark, with a spoon in his hands, when another memory struck and he shivered even more violently, unable to stop the widening of his eyes or his hand crushing the spoon, twisting it out of shape.

He took another deep breath as the memory subsided before asking JARVIS to turn the lights a little brighter, grabbing the throw from the end of the sofa and clutching it tightly.

He sat there alone, shivering. He liked to pretend it was because of the ice cream but couldn't even convince himself, not with the memories still rocking through his head, though weaker than before. He hadn't had a night this bad in months. He wondered what brought it on now.

Trying desperately to keep the memories at bay, he didn't even notice Tony standing at the doorway - impressive, because Tony was certainly not the most discreet of their team. Whilst Steve was still lost in his memories, Natasha and Clint joined Tony at the door, followed by Bruce. Thor crashed in last and this time Steve looked up startled, almost falling off the sofa when he found the whole team watching him from the door.

"What are you lot doing here?" he asked.

Knowing that telling him JARVIS had woken them sounding concerned would do nothing more than aggravate the Captain, Natasha said, "I was already up, in the gym. I heard you, came to see what was up."

Clint, eager for an excuse, continued, "We were sparring."

Steve threw them a slight look knowing now that no matter how dressed they looked, they were not dressed for training. Then again with Natasha no one could really be very sure.

"I was in the workshop," Tony said. Steve narrowed his eyes, he'd been sure than the shop was empty.

"I got woken up by this lot." Bruce jerked a thumb at the rest of the team, mock scowling at them.

"The mighty JARVIS awoke me!" Thor boomed.

Tony threw him a deadpan look.

"Really?" Steve asked dryly. "What did JARVIS say?"

"That you were needing assistance." Thor seemed to realise that he was stepping the wrong direction. "That the man of iron needed assistance and that he was soon to explode something else."

As true as that sounded Steve wasn't buying it. "Nice try."

"What try?" Tony asked. "Now budge up and pass me the ice cream."

Steve moved his legs and handed over the tub as asked, choosing to ignore the real reasons behind why the team were here. Tony reached over and plucked the mangled spoon out of Steve's hands, eyeing it curiously.

"What have you been doing to my poor cutlery?" Tony sounded horrified.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "It's lucky if we can get you to even use cutlery. Why are you so bothered at the destruction of one spoon? If you're that bothered go out and buy some more yourself." Steve, alarmed at the usage of the word destruction, peered at the spoon, apparently astonished at what he'd done without noticing.

Thor, apparently bored of standing at the doorway, made his way across the room and positively catapulted himself onto one of the empty sofas. Tony smirked as he dug the ruined spoon into the ice cream, wrestling with it slightly to free it from the frozen tub. "Why go when I could get it delivered?"

"Because it's less lazy? Wait, what am I saying? Of course you'll get it delivered. Why would Tony Stark lower himself to the level of us mere mortals?"

"We're hardly mortals. We have Thor, the Norwegian _God_of Thunder on our team. Mortality isn't exactly a group requirement."

"And then there's Bruce and the Captain," Clint pointed out for consideration.

Tony cocked his head. "Hmm. The Captain's serum makes him good but does it prolong his life? And Brucie Boy! Who knows what's going on there - but I'd like to find out."

Bruce, knowing that Tony wouldn't hurt him but still not liking the images that particular statement evoked, replied, "I'm good thanks."

Natasha moved further into the room carrying on of the bottles of vodka that she'd apparently procured from nowhere.

"Where did you get that?" Steve gaped, certain she'd been empty handed when she'd first entered.

Natasha answered like she was talking to a very dumb three year old. "The kitchen."

"When did you vanish there?" Tony enquired.

"Not long after we finished discussing cutlery."

Steve slowly settled back into the sofa, releasing his death grip on the throw, the shadows rescinding slightly. He watched the teams friendly banter mirthfully, only interjecting comments rarely, fully content just to watch and listen. This was _his_ team.

The rest of the team saw the darkness fade behind his eyes and smiled to each other, glad that, for once, they had been able to keep the nightmares at bay.


End file.
